The Hardest Lessons
by Alexis.Danaan
Summary: Outtakes from Lessons Unexpected, primarily JPOV's. Read Lessons Unexpected first or you won't understand anything that happens here.
1. Chapter 1

**Lessons Unexpected Outtake 1**

**JPOV—Chapter 4**

**A/N: Here it is folks! Enjoy!**

The gravel crunched loudly under Jasper's boots as he paced restlessly across the hotel roof. Night had descended upon Alaska but the world had barely changed to him. Instead of the sharp colours of day, Jasper saw the muted tones of blues, purples and greys. His eyes scanned the world below him, watching as the human's scurried from building to car or car to building, trying to avoid the cold. He had always thought that they looked rather ridiculous when they were all bundled up like that. Having come from the South where it had rarely snowed, even during the darkest months of winter, he found that the way they waddled when they were so thickly padded was rather entertaining.

But it was a pain in the ass when they layered because it gave him more work when he had to rip the scarf from their neck before he drained them.

Of course, it wasn't really all that hard to do, but Jasper was all about instant gratification these days. Why should he deny his nature? Why deny himself his natural food source, the one thing he craved more than—

He derailed that train of thought and turned to jump off the roof of the hotel. The air whistled by him as he dropped like the stone his skin seemed to be made of before he felt the impact of the ground and bent his knees to absorb it. His senses scanned the area as he casually walked out of the alley way but there had been no human beings around to see that death defying stunt that no human being was capable of. He experienced a brief flash of relief that there would be no needless killing tonight before he squashed it. What purpose did it serve to feel sorry for them? He was willing to bet that they didn't feel sorry for the cow as they dug in to their expensive t-bone. At least, if they did, it wasn't strong enough to stop them from enjoying what came natural to them. He could relate on that level.

He turned left almost without thinking and began meandering slowly in the opposite direction that he knew he should be going in. He should be leaving Alaska, or at least this area, but for some reason he couldn't seem to make himself do it. After four long years of not knowing, he had finally found her.

She had changed a bit, of course, it _had_ been four years and she was human. Her hair was longer than it had been, brushing her waist now. Her body had filled out, the hard and awkward angles of adolescence had turned into the alluring curves and subtlety of a young woman. She had grown a few more inches, putting the top of her head at his chin level but that wasn't the part of her that had shocked him so.

It was her face, the way _that_ had changed. Of course, there were the minute signs of aging—she had the beginnings of laugh lines around her eyes and mouth—but it was more so what she did with that face now. The Bella he had known used to hide herself behind a curtain of curling hair, now she looked you dead in the eye and even sneered at you! Sneered! Bella! If the sight of her laughing and joking with her companions hadn't enraged him so he would have been impressed.

But he couldn't get over those laugh lines. He would never have them, of course. Even if his skin _could_ show signs of repetition, laugh lines would not be what formed on his face. A permanent line from frowning, perhaps, or a thinning of his lips from constantly pressing them together in anger. But laugh lines? Surely not.

He kicked out at a fallen water bottle next to a garbage can as he walked by, sending it flying into the air and halfway down the block but he didn't care. No one was around to see him and even if they were, fuck'em. He was in the right mood to drain some stupid human being who happened to be around at the wrong time. He had been so shocked when he first stumbled across her scent and traced it back to that bar she worked at. For a moment, he had forgotten about everything that had happened in the last four years and he was happy, hoping that she would see him and throw her arms around him in greeting.

But then he remembered that she would probably be terrified of him, and if she wasn't, she would definitely hate him. So he stayed outside of the bar and spied on her—something that he still couldn't explain. Why did he stay? Why did he watch her with sick fascination? He should have left, but he couldn't make himself do it. He wanted to see how she was doing, he wanted...he didn't know what he wanted anymore.

He had hoped that she was doing alright, that she was getting by and surviving after Edward had left her. She certainly seemed to have things in order, she was a student, working, living with other people her age and species, so why was he so shocked and enraged when he heard her witty banter with the other staff that worked in the tiny pub?

He stood outside in the alley way, so that no one noticed him, and listened as she laughed, joked, and chatted away happily with people. How? How could she do this? How could she be so...so..._happy?_ He was so angry that he didn't even recognize that what he was feeling was jealousy until it had already consumed him.

How _dare_ she be happy when _he_ was miserable all because _she_ existed?

Here he had thought that maybe, just maybe, she would understand him, of all people. She, too, had been left by someone that she loved, abandoned like yesterday's news. Or, in Alice's case, yesterday's outfit.

But, clearly, she didn't. She didn't know, she couldn't understand. She was just another human being, she couldn't understand the vast expanse of a vampire's emotions. She just couldn't comprehend that kind of intensity. She had moved on and become happy again.

He knew that he should be happy for her, but he just didn't have it in him. If she hadn't existed, if Edward had never fallen in love with her, Alice would never have left him. It was all _her_ fault and here she was, living her life happily while he wandered the world alone.

He hated her in that moment, hated her with a passion he didn't fully understand.

So even though he knew he shouldn't be, he found himself walking to where she lived with two other human beings. He had already been in there before and so it was not hard for him to find her bedroom window, scale the wall and slide the metal frame up enough to allow his body entrance.

Her room was dark and warm compared to the world outside but she wasn't in there. He turned and closed the window quietly behind him as he let his senses roam the dwelling. He could hear three heartbeats, two of which were farther away than the other. There was a TV on in another room and the sound of shifting bodies. He could smell them, each one of them, including Bella. The male had been in here several times recently and Jasper wondered if they were together. He curled his lip in distaste.

He heard a shower shutting off and the sound of someone clambering awkwardly out of it. He would bet his entire existence's savings that that heartbeat belonged to Bella. She may have learned how to walk in a straight line without tripping but she was still _Bella_ and seemingly prone to clumsiness. He had witnessed her stumble over small things several times since he had arrived. She didn't even seem to notice that she was tripping which spoke to how often it still happened.

He listened as a pair of footsteps, accompanied by a heartbeat, slowly made their way closer to him, reaffirming his idea that it was Bella. He didn't know what he would do when she walked in here though, should he show himself, or hide? Why was he even there? He hadn't decided when the door was pushed open and so he threw himself, soundlessly, into the darkest corner of her room and crouched down. He wasn't sure what he would do if she turned the lights on but he would probably show himself. He wasn't prepared to dive under her bed like some teenager being caught by his girlfriend's father. He had some dignity left, apparently.

He didn't have to worry about it though, because she never turned the lights on. He watched as she stumbled around the room with her poor vision and even poorer memory—shouldn't she remember where she put things? This is _her_ room after all—and put things away. He figured that she would start changing soon because she was still wearing a towel but before he could wonder whether he should close his eyes, she hit her foot on the corner of her desk.

Swearing, she hissed in pain and began to hop on one foot. It was pretty funny actually and Jasper was surprised when he found himself grinning. He shouldn't be laughing at her discomfort but he couldn't help it, Bella had always been clumsy and it had always been entertaining for him. He was shocked, however, when he felt a shift in her emotions. It happened so rapidly, he couldn't understand it; she went from angry—probably about her foot—to wallowing in sorrow. Where was this coming from? He reached out with his gift and what he felt almost made him whimper aloud.

The emotional pain, the deep yawning cavern of her abandonment, the hopelessness, it felt like a punch in the gut and it threatened to swallow him whole. He pulled his gift back abruptly and put his hands over his face. He knew that feeling. He knew it too well. Why...

No.

Do not feel sorry for them. Do not feel sorry for _this_ human being. She ruined everything, who cares if she's depressed? She probably broke up with her roommate boyfriend, or failed a test. Human beings couldn't understand true pain, they didn't have the capacity. He could understand it though; he knew what it was to truly feel abandoned, hopeless, devoid of happiness.

He stepped out of the shadows as her cries slowed and she heaved a deep sigh, he needed to get out of here before her tears could break past his anger and hatred. He hadn't thought that he needed to hate her until the moment he saw her again. She brought everything back, all the memories. Alice.

"Well, it's about time," he said casually.

He watched as she scrambled to her feet and clutched at the towel that barely covered her body, "What the _hell_ do you think you're doing here?" she demanded.

He walked forward so that she could see him and smirked at her, she looked like a drowned rat with her wet hair plastered to her shoulders and back, her eyes red and swollen. She glared at him which only made him feel better. Yes, he could deal with her anger, it fed his.

"What's the matter, Bella? Had a rough day?" he taunted her, knowing that it would throw her deeper into her rage.

"Yeah, I wonder why that is? It wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the sudden reappearance of a certain vampire that I have no pleasure in seeing?" she snapped at him.

"Well, I wasn't going to stay but I have to say, I was curious about you. And then you had to go and challenge me, I can't turn down a challenge," he replied calmly. He reached out with his gift and felt her anger boiling there, just under the surface.

"Challenge? What are you talking about?" she demanded, easing backwards a bit. He grinned. Was Bella the Brave scared of him? What, the girl who had once ran with the vampire family, scared? He nearly chuckled.

"Oh, you mean, besides smacking me across the face?" he asked innocently, quirking an eyebrow at her. He stepped forward, invading her personal space on purpose. She tried to maintain the distance between them but her back hit the wooden door behind her. "That bullshit about Alice? That was a challenge Bella, and we both know it. You tried to rub some salt in my wounds, not thinking that I would retaliate. Trust me, I have plenty of weapons against you in my arsenal. Shall I tell you about how Edward has taken Tanya as his mate? You know, from how I hear it, they're worse than Emmett and Rose with all the fucking. Who would have thought ol' Eddie had it in him?"

He wasn't surprised by the stabbing pain that lanced through her anger but he was surprised by how unsatisfying it was. Her lips trembled as she spoke, "Fuck you Jasper. That wasn't how I meant that comment about Alice and you know it."

Did he? He didn't know anything of the sort. He wasn't a mind reader like her dear Edward, "Do I?"

He took another step forward until he was mere inches away from her body. He wanted her rage back, he didn't want to feel her pain, so he did what he knew would piss her off. He looked her up and down like she was a tasty meal that he'd like to take a bite out of. In truth, it wasn't hard, she had a beautiful body and he'd have to be blind not to see that, but that wasn't how he wanted to view her.

"Well, well, Bella. You've certainly grown into that body of yours, haven't you? I mean," he paused and licked his lips in a derogatory manner, "you're no Tanya Denali so I can see why Edward didn't stick around, but still, I could have some fun with those curves of yours."

He nearly laughed in delight as the rage overwhelmed his senses. She spun around and reached out for the first thing that she could grab, a lamp, and she whipped it at his head. He knew she wanted a reaction from him but he wanted more anger. He felt the lamp hit him in the side of the head but it felt like the whisper of a breeze. He didn't move a muscle as it exploded into pieces around his head. He was sorely tempted to grin when he felt her rage spike.

"_Fuck you!_" she growled, "_You're_ the reason why I'm here alone, why he left me!"

_What_? He nearly asked it aloud. What the hell did she think he was, Edward's keeper? He didn't force Edward to do squat. Clearly, she hadn't figured out _why_ the boy had pulled up his tent pegs yet. Well, he wasn't about to inform her.

"Nah, I'm just the convenient excuse, the scapegoat if you will," he said, with a shrug.

"Bullshit! Edward loved me once! _You_ changed that!"

He laughed at that, crossing his arms over his chest. She thought that _he_ had stopped Edward from loving her? That he had influenced the other vampire's emotions? Christ, this girl was clueless. Well, he could use that to his advantage.

"And just how could I do that? Face it Bella, he never _loved_ you. He was curious, you intrigued him. Once the fascination lost its appeal, he stopped caring. It's in our nature, you know."

He nearly growled when he felt the pain surface again. She wasn't supposed to be _hurt_ by his words, she was supposed to get _angry_. It wasn't like she actually _cared_ about Edward anymore, she had never truly loved him. If she had, she wouldn't have been capable of laughing. You can't, not when you lose your mate. This was her pride they were talking about. She had been left behind and her pride was wounded, not her heart. Where was the rage!

"You manipulate emotions! Of course you could do it! Why? Because I'm human? Not good enough? Is that it?" Bella demanded.

Jasper eyed her as if she were a little touched in the head, "You give me too much credit, Bella. As you saw in your little cafe, I cannot create someone's emotions; I can only influence them with mine. I have to summon that emotion before I project it onto the person. I cannot take someone's emotion away from them, only replace it with my own, and only then if they're weak enough. If I _had_ been making Edward think that he was no longer in love with you, he would be here right now, because I haven't seen Edward, nor any of the Cullens, for almost five years."

There was that pain again. _God dammit!_ What was this? "No. You're lying," she whispered.

He was furious. He wanted her _anger_! Enough with the pain! It was starting to swallow him. He pushed it back, refusing to acknowledge it, or why it was there. "I think that five years would be sufficient time to come to his senses, to realize he really loves you, don't you think? I mean, I know he's a vampire and we tend to view time differently from you humans, but still, five years _is_ five years."

He threw his gift out at her, searching for her anger, but it was laced with the pain.

"Perhaps your right Jasper, but what I don't understand is why Alice isn't with you," Bella asked, her voice cold and knowing.

Jasper froze, though Bella wouldn't have noticed. He stared at her for a second too long, desperately pushing down the memories of the last time he had seen the woman he loved.

"She's abroad right now. She's not a fan of the colder climates," he lied quickly.

It didn't work. Bella laughed at him, crossing her arms over her towel clad chest. He felt his lip twitch in an effort to bare his teeth. How dare she laugh at him?

"Oh bullshit! She's not with you anymore is she?" Bella asked.

Jasper pulled his gift away from her, curling it around himself; he didn't want to feel her glee as she found his weakness. He wouldn't show it to her. He gritted his teeth in anger but tried to answer her as calmly as possible.

"She's not with me right _now_, but that doesn't mean that she isn't still my mate, that we're not still together."

He felt the lie tear through him, leaving pain in its wake. It was a giant lie. Alice was gone, she wouldn't ever come back, she was no longer his mate...at least not in her eyes.

Bella laughed, "She left you didn't she? What was it Jasper? She couldn't stand the sight of you anymore, after you attacked her human 'sister'?"

Jasper clenched his fists together. She had no idea what she was talking about. She couldn't _know_ what...he swallowed his rage and forced himself to speak calmly once again.

"Not that I have to explain anything to you, but no," he could hear the growl in his tone but he hoped she wouldn't.

"Is that so?" Bella mocked him, raising a disbelieving eyebrow, "I think you're full of shit, Jasper. You stand there," she gestured to him with one hand, "acting all high and mighty, taunting me about the fact that Edward left me when you're in the exact same boat."

"I am not!" he spat. He clenched his hands together so hard that he could feel his own nails digging into his palm, almost painfully. She couldn't... she didn't... there was no way. How _dare_ she speak of Alice to him? It was all _her_ fault! _Everything was her fault!_

"You are so!" Bella crowed, "You weren't good enough either! You failed your mate! God, Jasper," she put on a fake tone of concern, "that must hurt _so_ much."

Something snapped in him. The rage boiled over his control and in that instant he hated her more than he had ever hated anyone else. He wanted to kill her; he wanted to rip out her throat. His eyes clouded over with images that he had tried to bury as he heard those haunting words ring through his ears once again.

_You're a monster!_

He lunged at her, not really seeing Bella, but rather something else. Something faceless, something horrible, something evil. It was his pain, the aching feeling inside of him that never seemed to ease no matter what he did.

"Go to hell!" he growled to it, talking to that pain, those emotions he couldn't escape.

And then he sank his teeth into warm flesh. The skin parted like soft butter in the path of a sharp knife. Hot blood flooded his mouth, washing over his tongue and he nearly groaned with pleasure. He swallowed greedily, sucking hard, pulling as much as he could out of that vein. He pulled and pulled and pulled, not aware of anything other than his pain, his anger, and the hot blood filling his mouth. It wasn't until it started to slow that he realized there was a world around him. He felt fingers in his hair and a limp body in his arms. A body. In his arms. Bella. His mouth, still at her neck. Oh god.

"Ja—Jasp—per," she gasped, her mouth right by his ear. Her voice was so faint. He pulled back and felt her blood dribble down his chin. He looked at her deathly pale face, her neck smeared with blood and a gaping wound still weeping a soft trickle of blood. She swallowed hard, her eyes unfocused, "I'm s-so s-sorry. P-please, for-g-give me?"

Jasper's throat closed up and the world crashed in around him. He had just killed her and she was apologizing to him. What was happening to him? How had he become this?

"Never," she gasped, "meant...t-to...hurt...you...l-loved...yo-you," her hand dropped from his hair, too weak to defy gravity any longer. He closed his eyes as it hit the hard wood floor underneath them with a thud that seemed to reverberate through his body.

The shame washed through him, leaving regret in its wake, "I'm sorry" he whispered.

He opened his eyes to see her staring off into the distance as her heart thudded slowly.

"What have I done?"

It was a rhetorical question. He knew what he had done, he just couldn't figure out why.

But he knew what he needed to do, because he wouldn't let her pay the price of his mistakes.

Quickly, he leaned down and attached his mouth to that ugly wound and, gathering as much of it as he could, he pushed his venom into her veins.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Hardest Lessons—Outtake # 2 (Chapter 10)**

**A/N: I know, this has been a long time coming. I've been uber busy. In fact, I should really be doing a report on a psychological assessment of one of my students (no, the student isn't in any danger, it's hypothetical) but instead I'm writing this. Priorities! **

**I did things a little differently this time because, to be honest, I don't like simply re-writing the chapter but in Jasper's voice. So... lemme know if you likey. **

"_I know you can feel it, too. Don't hide you liar, some kind of thunder inside."—"Liar" by Dragonette_

He was on a rollercoaster, surely.

The last time he had felt emotions flipping around like this he had been dragged to a high school dance in Maine by Alice and he spent the evening trying not to drown in teenage emotions or slaughter the whole gym just to get some peace.

The problem this time was that the emotions were his own.

Angry, guilty, sad, angry, guilty, sad. Again and again and again. It was all he felt these days. Especially now.

Bella had asked him why he had blamed her for all of his troubles that night in Alaska. Why?

Because he was a prick.

A large part of him knew that, acknowledged it, welcomed it even. He had no qualms about pissing people off because he could hold his own in a fight if need be and to be honest it was often the most entertaining part of his existence.

Wasn't that just pathetic? He got off on irritating people. What did that say about him? Probably nothing good.

Why had he blamed her? Because at the time, it was easier than blaming himself. He'd never thought of himself as a coward but he had to admit, if only to himself, that he had been being a coward for four and a half years when it came to one silly, clumsy human being and her role in his life.

When he met her, she had been a young girl falling in love for the first time. She was a child then, tripping over herself and blushing furiously when Edward swooped in to save the day. She hadn't known what she was getting into, not really, not until it was too late. And by that time, she was blinded by her affections for Edward to see the truth in his words when he called himself a monster.

They were all monsters, in some way or another. It was always inside of them. That animal with incredible strength and agility, the one that hunted for its survival and, when threatened, would fight to the death.

And now he had made her one too.

Enter guilt.

It was always easier to just be _angry_ as opposed to being _sorry_ or _remorseful_ and he had been trying so damn hard to cling to that anger, no matter how misplaced he knew it was. She made it hard for him, with her logical arguments and her raw emotions. Then again, she also made it easier on him when she threw Alice in his face.

Of course, she hadn't done that in a while. The last time she had done that, he had ripped her throat open.

Take a seat, guilt, you're going to be here a while.

Those first few days after her change had been the worst. When he had told her that she would never bear a child the pain that radiated from her had been so strong it had taken his breath away. But did she cry? Scream? No. The only outward sign that she had even heard him was the one hand that gently found its way to her flat and barren stomach. When she told him that he should have just let her die? Words could not possibly express how fucking _foul_ he felt.

Enter sadness.

But sad had never suited him very well and out of Bella's pain came anger, she lashed out at him and so he attacked right back. They danced around each other in that same sick cycle until he thought he just might explode from it.

But she never stopped surprising him.

When he had left Forks he had left behind a naive, silly girl but he had found a strong and confident young woman a mere four years later. She challenged him at every turn; Christ, she could make a man lose his marbles quite easily but he found that he _enjoyed it_. She called him out on his shit and wasn't afraid to make him angry. At the same time, she'd make him laugh at the oddest moments and he'd think to himself that if only they could be like that all the time, they could be happy as companions in their eternity.

Hence, the rollercoaster.

So when he found himself sitting next to her, his emotions flip-flopping around, as she reached out and grabbed his hand he added a new emotion to the list.

Affection.

It was there, he could feel it, flowing out of her and into him. Perhaps she didn't realize it, or maybe it was a cause of the moment but whatever the case, it was there.

She cared about him. He had ended her life in a fit of childish rage and she _cared_.

Helloooo, guilt.

"Talk to me, Jasper," she said, squeezing his hand and gently stroking her thumb over the bumps of his knuckles, "Say something, anything. Hell, yell at me if you want."

He nearly smiled. Hadn't she recently told him she wasn't going to take anymore of his verbal abuse?

"What about the verbal punching bag speech?" he asked her, staring at their hands. They were so different, the two of them. He had hands that were permanently scarred by life with Maria. Hers were small and smooth, unblemished except for the one crescent bite that was the only indication of her entanglement with vampires before she was turned.

She didn't answer him, keeping quiet in the way that only a vampire can as he continues to stare and compare the two of them. So many differences, yet so many similarities. Slowly, he shifted his hand under hers so that their palms touched and he could weave his fingers between hers.

"No one's touched me like this in years."

It was the truth. No one had touched him simply because they wanted to since before her horrible 18th birthday party—he hadn't let them. Peter had slapped him on the back in greeting when he fled to Austin, Texas right after leaving Forks and Alice behind but it wasn't the same thing. Sure, women who had no idea who they were trying to flirt with had touched him but it wasn't like this. He always allowed their advances because it gave him the perfect excuse to ask them to join him outside, to "go back to their place", a place they never arrived at. But this, this was completely and utterly different.

Of course, the last time he had tried that it had failed utterly. He had left Bella at the house and ran like a mad man into the nearest town with memories of Alice chasing him the whole way. He found a victim and lured her outside easily but when it all boiled down to the main event he found himself thinking about Bella, about how angry and disappointed she would be when she saw him with fresh red eyes. It hurt, for some reason that he didn't understand and he reacted like he always did to pain.

He got angry, because how dare she pass judgment on him when she wasn't even there? He snapped the girl's neck before he drained her dry, all the while picturing Bella's face.

He knew then, as he had hidden her body where it wouldn't be found for some months, that he would never be able to feed this way again without picturing her disappointed face.

His cell phone chose that moment to start vibrating in his pocket and he was forced to relinquish her hand. As soon as he did the steady flow of her emotions dimmed to a light trickle and he found that he missed it. It had been so long since someone gave two shits about him and he felt justified in being a little greedy for it. Concentrating his gift on her, as he pulled out the phone, he forced his way into her emotions, feeling the calm, the affection and the curiosity that swam within her.

He recognized the number on the display but he had no inclination to talk to Emmett at that moment in time. Unfortunately, Emmett had other ideas. As he had feared, it hadn't been a conversation that he had overtly enjoyed; in fact, it had just served to make him angry once again. Anger was a familiar emotion for him; he felt it almost all the time, even when it wasn't his.

"_Do you really want to live with someone who's angry at you? Who hates you? Do you want to feel that every day?"_

Bella's words flashed through his mind as he listened to Emmett berating him for not caring enough about Bella's welfare to help in the search for her. He hadn't really given her one, but the answer was simple:

No. He didn't want to live like that anymore.

But it was a hard habit to break and when he ended the conversation with Emmett his emotions were running on high through his body, hot and furious.

"What the fuck do we do now?" he had demanded of her, as if she had all the answers.

Instead of snapping back at him she had reached out again, just like she had before, with her calm hands and wise words about touch and human need and that little shred of humanity left inside them that he sometimes lost sight of.

"So, what do we do now?" he asked again, calmer now, surrounded by _her_ calm.

She gave him the oddest look, a little smile pulling at the side of her mouth before it lit in her eyes and exploded into a full out grin.

"Braid our hair and have a pillow fight in our underwear?"

He looked at her like she was crazy and the smile became impossibly wider, her eyes dancing with a happiness he didn't understand.

But that was okay, because he liked it when those eyes looked at him _that_ way.

**A/N: So, did that give you what you wanted? A little insight into his mind, his feelings, where he's coming from?**

**Oh, there is a new poll up on my profile. I'm trying something new with this one. Instead of having you guys pick a chapter for me to write from JPOV I've give you the option of select scenes that have never been written. Check it out and vote! It will stay up until Ch 22 is posted!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Lessons Unexpected Outtake 3**

**Bella POV**

**A/N: Special thanks to Edward'sChipper for pre-reading this puppy at the glorious hour of 1am. I love you long time. **

Bella walked out of the cool night air and into the warm reception area of the hospital, the whirring of the electronic sliding doors sounded in her wake. She paused in the entry way to take in the foreign world that she had just stepped into. The scent of the building assaulted her nose but it wasn't the lingering aroma of blood that bothered her, it had been tinged with chemicals and cleaning agents that killed any desire she may have had for it. No, it was the scent of death and decay that hung in the air, even down here in the pleasantly lit and brightly decorated lobby. As a human, Bella had hated the scent of hospitals but then it had been the harsh odour of cleaning agents and sterilization that had bothered her. Her many stints in ERs had never cured her of the aversion, if anything, it had only served to increase it tenfold.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of a human with a rapidly beating heart walking through the electronic doors behind her. The shift in the air pushed the familiar scent of her husband and mate into her. She inhaled it deeply, greedily, and held out her hand to him without looking. His warm fingers slipped around hers, squeezing them gently in reassurance and love. She didn't need his gift to know that she was loved but, nonetheless, she enjoyed feeling it as he pushed the emotion through their physical connection.

Together, they walked up to the reception desk where a tired looking nurse in pink scrubs sat behind a computer typing in patient information. She looked up out of the corner of her eye as she heard them approach and, probably out of habit, resumed her task without actually acknowledging them. However, when her brain caught up to what her eyes were telling her, she quickly whipped around and faced the two beautiful people before her. Her face was a picture of shock and, when she glanced at Jasper, admiration. Bella was used to this treatment now and under normal circumstances, she wouldn't have cared much about the woman's obvious interest in her husband. As it were, she was a bit short on patience.

"Could you please direct me to the room of Daniel Poulin?" she asked, her voice harder than necessary.

"Uhm," the nurse glanced at Bella and then promptly blushed. She had been caught oogling, and she knew it. Jasper squeezed Bella's hand and sent her a jolt of amusement. She rolled her eyes at him.

The nurse turned to the computer and typed in Danny's name as Bella spelled it out slowly for her. Waiting the few seconds that it took for the electronic device to generate the information grated on Bella's nerves even though she knew it shouldn't. She had been antsy from the moment she decided that she would come to see him. Jasper was probably going mental with the way her emotions were ping-ponging around.

It had been ten years since she had last seen her roommates. Ten years since she had seen anyone from her human life. She had never expected to see them again, or anyone else for that matter but it was Alice's intervention that had led to this moment.

Her friend was many things, and not all of them were good, but the one thing about Alice was the consistency of her advanced warnings. Bella had learned many, many years ago to never bet against her short friend and so when the pixie vampire had called her up on the phone and told her that Bella's old friend was dying, she knew that she had to see him.

"He's up on the fourth floor, number 408," the nurse said, her eyes darting at Jasper and away.

Bella suppressed a growl and turned away without saying thank you, or even acknowledging the woman's efforts.

"Don't get so angry," Jasper whispered to her, "she wasn't really interested, more like fascinated."

Bella cast an incredulous glare at him. "You say that as if it's meant to sooth my irritation with her. I don't recall her looking all too _fascinated_ with _me_."

Jasper just grinned and leaned in swiftly to kiss her cheek.

Bella endured an elevator ride with a few humans, two old ladies who looked like they were about to expire any second, and thanked whatever deity that may be up there that she had learned to control both her thirst and her gift. It was much easier going out into public when one wasn't chomping at the bit to chew into the locales or making objects zoom around the room randomly. Explaining that was not something they'd yet mastered in the years since Bella discovered her gift and the few times they had been caught they had had to pretend it was all an elaborate gag.

When they reached the quiet fourth floor, Bella stepped out of the elevator and hesitated in the hall. She could hear dozens of heart beats, each one pumping at a different pace, with matching sets of lungs that struggled to take in air and release it. There were only two heart beats on the whole floor that seemed to be steady and healthy, only two pairs of lungs that didn't stutter or wheeze as they pulled in life giving oxygen. Bella felt her stomach plummet and she doubted, not for the first time, if she was doing the right thing.

"Baby?" Jasper questioned, feeling the shift in her mood.

"Am I doing the right thing Jasper?" she turned to look at him. His face was just the same as she always remembered it, the same as she had always known it to be—even when she had been human. She had never known Jasper Whitlock, the Civil War soldier; she had only known Jasper Cullen, the Southern Vampire War soldier. Her eyes traced the familiar lines of his face, the shape of his eyes and the fall of his curly blonde hair. His face, his scent, his touch all meant home for her. He meant familiarity, safety, love.

But like Jasper, she hadn't changed, hadn't grown, hadn't been altered since the day his venom coursed through her veins and burned away her humanity. Danny was bound to notice, no matter how sick he was. It had been ten years, there was no way he would believe that she had simply managed to stay young looking.

"Why wouldn't you be?"

"Because I'm going to expose us, you know that, I know that. I'm putting him in danger for my own selfish need to say goodbye," she sighed, running her free hand through her hair as her eyes sought out the room number on the door closest to them.

"Yes, I do know that, but I also know that he is dying. Even if he did tell someone, who would believe him? His nurses would simply think that he was getting closer to his time, that his faculties were beginning to fail him. He won't live long enough to spread the word about us, and honestly, I don't think he would," Jasper tried to placate her.

"How do you know that?" Bella demanded, "You never got to know him."

"He hasn't seen you in a decade, and he's dying a slow and painful death, do you really think that something like our existence is going to be at the top of his priority list?" He raised a blond eyebrow at her.

She nodded her head slightly in deference to his point. "True."

"And you're not being selfish, Bella. Selfish would have been seeking him and Chrissy out years ago when you really would have been putting their lives in danger. Danny deserves to know what happened to you before he leaves this world." Jasper's words rang true with her and as she felt them settle in her mind she knew that he was right. Jasper wasn't always much of a talker, especially when it came to the harder topics. He was more of an internalizing sort, and that often led to fights between the two of them, but when he had something to express, he always said it perfectly.

"It's going to be that way," Jasper pointed down the hall to her left and, with a sigh, she turned in that direction. She still wasn't completely sure about her visit and the indecision churned painfully in her stomach. She had asked Alice about her visions but the psychic pixie could only see part of the visit. She had cryptically told Bella that there was some big decision that both she and Danny would have to make before she could see the outcome of the whole thing. She hadn't been very forthcoming when Bella had pressed her about what that decision might be. _Stupid pixie_, Bella thought, rather uncharitably. She knew that Alice's visions were subjective, and that she was being unfair to her friend, but she couldn't help it at the moment.

Pausing at the door, she peered inside and what she saw there broke her silent heart. Danny was almost as pale as the sheets that he lay on, his frame was so withered and frail looking that the blankets engulfed him. Wires, tubes and machines surrounded him; various aspects of their parts fed into his dying body in the vain effort of keeping him alive just that little bit longer. It was a cruelty, she realized, to keep him like this. He was halfway there, with one foot on the other side, but man and his technology was keeping him from peace. She felt her eyes prick with tears that she could not shed and cursed whatever fate it was that led Danny down the road to cancer.

She knew that it happened to hundreds, thousands, of people all over the world, all the time but it had never happened to someone she loved. She knew that the advancements in technology had helped many others lead longer, fuller lives, but it wasn't helping someone she loved. She knew that this was no one's fault, not really, it was just the way life worked sometimes but it was happening to someone she loved and so logic, reason and everything but the anger fled her brain.

Without realizing that she was doing it, she had opened the door to Danny's room and walked in. She breathed in the scent of his body, filled with toxic chemicals meant to battle the cancer, and the pungent odour of death that hung in the air like an omen. She didn't have to be a vampire to smell it; it would be evident to even the humans who regularly came in to tend to him. She could hear the air being pushed slowly in and out of his frail body beneath the beeping of a heart monitor that stuttered on every fourth beat. Her vampire eyes raked over him, noting the differences between her dim memories of his young form and the man who lay before her now. She had very few memories from the later days of her human life, most of them were snippets of what her life had been at the time. A smile, a voice, someone calling her name, an open field full of flowers, the hot sun—all things that could be connected to almost anywhere and anyone. There was only one memory that she had held on to, that didn't involve her family, and it was the clean, fresh scent of Danny. She knew that she had been close to him but her human memories of that chapter in her life had slowly faded with time. She no longer remembered what her other roommate, Chrissy, looked like.

Part of her brain noted that Jasper had entered the room behind her and stood quietly at the doorway but the larger part of her was focused on forcing her body to take one step after another until she reached the metal railing of the hospital bed. Both sides were drawn up to prevent Danny from falling out of the bed, though Bella had no idea why. He didn't look like he was capable of moving enough to fall out of the bed. Slowly, she reached out and ran her hand over his bald head, part of her expecting to feel soft hair where there was none. The touch of his cool skin—not warm the way it should be—brought an onslaught of emotion that she was not prepared for. She could not remember much about this young man before her, but she knew that she had loved him once and it was the memory of that love that knocked at her heart now. She wanted to cry for him, for the injustice that he had been dealt. He was barely 34 years old and already on the threshold of death, a fate that no one deserved.

The heart monitor jumped and Bella's eyes darted to it quickly. The spike in the pattern was the only warning she got as Danny began to regain consciousness. Quicker than any human could discern, she whipped her hand back from his skin as if she had been burned by the touch. She clasped both hands behind her back, the feeling of his dry, papery flesh lingering on her fingers.

Slowly, Danny cracked open his eyes. They were a dull blue and something told her that they had once been bright. She waited one heart beat, two, four, nine, before he noticed her.

There was another sudden spike in the heart monitor and for a moment she worried that she would send him into cardiac arrest before she could get a word out. His sharp gasp broke the rhythm of the room and he struggled into a sitting position.

"Bella?" His voice was raspy and unused.

"Hello, Danny," she said softly, shyly. She had no idea how he would receive her reappearance in his life.

He stared at her, his eyes blinking furiously. It was the only part of him that seemed to be capable of moving rapidly.

"I...I...Bella, you...I don't understand," he whispered.

"May I sit?" she asked, nodding towards his bed. He stared at her for another four heart beats before nodding and reaching for the metal railing. Bella beat him to it, flipping the latch so that she could lower the guard. Slowly, Danny shifted over so that Bella had enough room to perch on the edge of his bed.

"You haven't changed a bit," he rasped, his eyes drinking her in. "How are you alive?"

She smiled softly and looked down as she reached for his hand. If she had a heart beat still, it would be hammering away in her chest like a racing horse. She felt Jasper send her his calming influence and she smiled softly, grateful for his wordless support. Bella slipped her hand under Danny's larger one and curled her fingers around his palm. He gasped at the coldness of her hands and looked down at their joined limbs in shock.

"It's a long story, but it's your choice to know the full extent of it. What I tell you, Danny, it can't be untold, and it can't be shared," she met his gaze. Golden yellow and sky blue.

Gentle pressure on her hand made her look down. She bit her lip, venom pooling in her eyes, as she realized that he was trying to give her a reassuring squeeze. "Tell me."

So she did.

She told him of the Cullens and what she could remember of her life in Forks. She told him of the things that she couldn't remember but that Jasper had filled in for her. She told him of her flight to Alaska and the dangerous vampire she had encountered in an alley way. She related the details of her disappearance, watching as Danny's eyes darted over to the doorway where Jasper continued to stand, her silent guardian. She skipped over much of what happened between her and the Cullen's, it wasn't necessary, but she did tell him of the joy that she had found in her new life. She described, in great detail, the freedom of running through the forest as the sun set on another day and the satisfaction that came with knowing that she had her soul mate by her side. She told him of what it was like to watch the world pass you by, literally, while you were left standing still and how lonely it could feel sometimes. She held his hand to her silent chest and let him feel that there was no blood pumping through her veins anymore. She answered his questions as they came, the how's, the why's; the diet, the changing, the thirst, living or dying forever. She couldn't answer everything, for some things there was simply a shrug of the shoulders or a knowing smile, but she tried as best as she could.

When she was done, he watched her silently, his heartbeat as steady as it could be and his hand still in hers.

"You're taking this better than I expected," she confessed, smiling softly.

"I'd be a fool to waste what little time I have left denying the overwhelming truth of what you've shown me. You told me that you're technically dead and then showed me that you no longer have a heartbeat, why would I doubt everything else you've told me?"

She grinned. "I'd show you more, but I don't want to scare you."

Curiosity sparked in his eyes. "Show me what? C'mon, I'm not dead yet."

Bella snickered and jumped up faster than Danny's eyes could process. Keeping up her speed, she darted around the hospital bed so that she was on the other side. He blinked at where she had been before turning to look around the room. When his eyes lighted on her they widened comically and she giggled.

"Human eyes cannot track our movement, the same way they cannot watch a bullet fly," she told him, pulling down the other metal rail and sitting down on the opposite side of the bed. At that exact moment, Bella heard Jasper's cell phone vibrate in his pocket. She looked up at him as he dug into his jeans and pulled it out, the little screen illuminating his face with harsh blue light. He looked up at her and mouthed, "Alice" before slipping silently out of the room.

"What's that all about?"

She bit her lip and glanced back at the door, her mind working to put the pieces together. If Alice was calling, that meant that she saw something and if she saw something, someone made a decision. She hadn't, and she was pretty sure that Jasper hadn't either, which left Danny.

"Did you...decide on something?"

His heart beat skipped and she knew.

"I...I..." he trailed off lamely, not able to finish putting his thoughts into words.

Taking pity on him she said, "Some of us are gifted, Danny. One of the Cullens, Alice, can see the future but it's subjective to someone's decisions. You made a decision, didn't you?" He stared at her and she could smell him begin to sweat. It was not the usual human scent, his was tinged with the chemicals that infused his body and she fought to wrinkle her nose.

"What did you decide, Danny?" she prompted gently. She had an idea but she wanted to hear him say it.

"I want to live," he whispered, his eyes tearing up.

She closed her eyes as they prickled uncomfortably. "This isn't exactly living, Danny," she whispered.

"It's better than being six feet under," he argued, his voice just as soft.

"You don't know that," she told him, opening up her eyes to see tears flowing freely down his. "You don't know what it's like to battle the bloodlust, to have to re-learn your body." She reached out and swiped her thumb over his wet cheek, "You would never be able to do this again." She held up her thumb so he could see it glisten with his tears. "We don't cry. We feel the need to, we feel the pain, or the joy, or the frustration that comes with tears but we can never experience the release of weeping."

"You don't know that being a vampire isn't better than being dead, Bella, you never truly died," Danny countered, his voice hard. Jasper walked back in at that exact moment, but he did not stay by the door this time. His eyes were trained on Danny's face as he strode forward purposefully. Both Bella and Jasper heard Danny's heart rate spike as they caught the scent of fear. Jasper had that effect on people.

"Neither of you will ever truly understand the other and though Bella has found contentment in her life as an immortal it doesn't mean that you will," Jasper's voice was hard and brooked no argument. "I spent over a hundred years of this existence hating every second of it; I felt that I was truly in my own personal hell. You have no idea how many times I wished that I had been killed by the vampire who had brought me into this life. There is never any guarantee. You may not even survive the change, your body is weak and dying."

Danny swallowed hard, his eyes glued to Jasper's face. Bella closed hers as her husband's words washed over her.

"There is so much about this life that you cannot understand until you are living it and by the time you regret it, it would be too late to take it back," Jasper continued, his golden eyes never wavered. "If we changed you, you would be under our protection and our responsibility until you could control yourself. Newborn vampires are crazy with the bloodlust, it consumes them and they become mere wild beasts. There is very little of the man left in them when they smell fresh blood and without an experienced vampire there, they are capable of desiccating a small city before the haze lifts enough for them to realize what it is that they've done. If you did this, you would be killed and so would we for letting you get out of control."

"So do not get irritated with my wife for what she is trying to warn you about. We are not truly alive, nor are we dead. Vampires walk between two worlds, between myth and reality. Vampires who hunt the way we do, as Bella has told you, walk between two different worlds: that of the human, and that of the vampire, not truly fitting into either. We would demand that you adhere to our lifestyle while you lived with us, which would mean that you would be on the edge of a society that is already cast in shadows. You would never be able to become part of the human world again, and everyone you know in this life would have to believe you to be dead, which is a lot harder than you think it is."

"I don't—"

"Do not even bother. I may not be able to read your mind as my brother Edward could, but I can feel your stubbornness as easily as I can see it in your face. I can feel your emotions Daniel, I know that you feel that Bella doesn't understand you and to be honest," his eyes flicked to his wife, "she doesn't. But you do not understand her position either, she did not come willingly into this world and that is something that we have both had to learn how to deal with. If you join us, this would be _your_ decision. I will not allow you to lay any blame at mine or my wife's feet if you end up regretting it. Do you understand?"

Danny, who had yet to take his eyes off of Jasper, nodded slowly before he slowly turned to look at Bella. He reached out a shaky hand to her, patting her knee gently. Looking back at Jasper, he said, "I want this."

Bella, who had listened with closed eyes, opened them at the soft touch of her former friend. She would have liked to call him her friend now but the truth was that she no longer knew him. What she did know was that she wanted the opportunity to get to know him again, she wanted to see him live even if it meant living a half life. She would do it herself if she had to. She looked up at Jasper, about to confirm what he could already see in her eyes when his phone rang again.

He snapped it open and held it to his ear. "Tell me."

"Let her do it. She won't slip," Bella could hear Alice's voice through the tiny speaker. "It has to be done as soon as they are far enough away from the hospital, he won't survive out doors for very long. And you two owe Carlisle big time."

"Do we now?" Jasper drawled.

"Yes," Alice said, matter-of-factly. "You do. He's in the middle of forging the self release forms, you know the ones where the patient checks out to die at home against the advice of the doctor."

Jasper grinned, "Tell him that I owe him, then."

Alice's tinkling laugh reached Bella, "I already know what he's going to ask you to do, and you won't like it."

Jasper sighed and rolled his eyes. "Keep us posted, please?"

"Always!" Alice's voice was excited as she said goodbye and hung up. Jasper slipped his phone back into his pocket, walked over to the window and threw it open. He popped the screen out and gently placed it against the wall before he turned and looked at Bella and Danny expectantly.

Bella looked at the frail human in front of her. "Are you sure about this? You can always say no up until the moment I bite you, the only way out of it then is death," she told him softly.

Danny looked from her to Jasper, waiting by the open window, and held out his hand to her. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

Bella smiled and stood, scooping his sickly body into her arms easily. He was far lighter than he should have been and she made a mental note to be extremely gentle with him. He gasped at the ease with which she held him and his hand automatically clutched at her shoulder.

"Jesus, Bella!"

She smiled as Jasper turned off the machines that were hooked to him and Danny pulled out the IV drip that was keeping his body alive. "I'll take care of you, I promise."

Walking with her precious burden in her arms, she headed for the window. In one swift jump she was perched on the edge of the window, the night air blowing at her hair. Danny's heart stuttered in fear and he held on a little tighter.

"I won't let you fall, I promise, but you can't scream. It would defeat the purpose of the sneaking out style we're trying to achieve here," she grinned at him. He laughed nervously as he glanced down at the ground far below them.

"I trust you, Bella."

She gave him a quick wink before she jumped out of the window and into the night air, ready to begin another chapter in a life full of waiting blank pages.


	4. Texas Fire Relief

Hello my lovely readers!

No, unfortunately, this is not an extra chapter for LU **BUUUUUT** it is me telling you that I am writing a super awesome outtake for the Fandom for Texas Wildfire relief.

For those of you who don't know, and if you live anywhere in North America you probably already do know, Texas has been on fire for weeks. Wildfires are hard to put out at the best of times but in such a dry climate the firefighters are practically fighting a losing battle. Many have lost their homes and their livelihoods and I know that if it were my country I would be hoping for help from others around the world. I'm donating money as well as my time and I ask that you take the initiative to do the same. If you donate $5 or more you'll be given access to over 140 authors' works, mine included.

Anyway, back to the outtake. It's going to be set post-Danny's change (which is the last outtake that I have written for "The Hardest Lessons") and it's going to cover the repercussions of his change, how his addition will affect the family. Originally I was hesitant to write an original character in this fandom because I usually hate it when other people do that but I had plenty of requests for it and when I was sent a message asking to donate my time and my writing I figured that this would be a popular offering. At least, I hope it will be?

Again, please consider donating. 5 bucks isn't a lot, but I had over 300 hits daily to Lessons Unexpected when it was updating and if each of you donated 5 dollars that's $1,500 which can help buy provisions for families who have nothing left.

To be extremely cheesy and cliché I'm gonna quote a song: "Take a look around you, what if it happened there?"

To donate/sign up/see the contributing authors, please visit: texasfires[.]ysar[.]info (remove the square brackets).

Cheers!


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